Choice of supreme leader reflects Iran’s defiance, experts say, making regime change unlikely

TEHRAN — The elevation of Mojtaba Khamenei to supreme leader brings to Iran’s highest office a hardline figure who is most firmly his father’s son in charting a path of defiance for the country.

“The elevation of Mojtaba Khamenei is not just a succession, it is a provocation — a brutal middle finger to Trump,” said Ali Vaez, who heads the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group think tank, adding that her selection was “a declaration that the Islamic Republic will respond to pressure with defiance, not reform.”

Considered by President Trump a “loser” and an “unacceptable choice,” Khamenei, 56, was chosen Monday by the Assembly of Iranian Experts, an 88-member religious body, to succeed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed on the first day of the US-Israeli assault.

Global markets have reacted with concern to Khamenei’s rise, interpreting it as a sign that the war will likely continue beyond the “four or five weeks” promised by Trump.

“This is a final act of resistance from the late Khamenei from the grave,” said Ellie Geranmayeh, a senior researcher and expert on Iran at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “It also sends a strong message to Trump that his bombings and threats are not bringing the regime change he seems to want.”

Mojtaba Khamenei, seen in 2019 in Tehran, was chosen as the new supreme leader of Iran, succeeding his father, Ali Khamenei.

(Vahid Salemi/Associated Press)

“Not only will he carry his father’s legacy of deep distrust of the United States and Israel,” she added, “but he will also be shadowed by personal vengeance given the murder of his mother, father, wife and child in the opening strikes of this war. »

Khamenei will preside over an exhausted population, battered by years of sanctions and successive confrontations with Israel and the United States. Many of the country’s 93 million people were deeply unhappy with the sclerotic and often corrupt regime that characterized his father’s 36 years of rule. In January, nationwide protests shook the government, which deployed lethal force and killed thousands, if not tens of thousands, of protesters.

The appointment represents a closing of ranks among Iran’s leaders, even as the war against the Islamic Republic continues into its second week. Iran’s ambassador to the UN said 1,332 civilians were killed, including 200 children and 11 health workers.

Top Iranian politicians – the president, the foreign minister and the speaker of parliament – ​​sent warm congratulations to Khamenei. Ali Larijani, head of the Supreme National Council and the country’s de facto ruler during the war, said Khamenei was raised “in his grandfather’s school of thought” and would use those teachings to lead the nation.

The military pledged allegiance, while the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, with which Khamenei served during the Iran-Iraq War, hailed it as “a new dawn and the beginning of a new phase in the history of the Islamic Revolution and the Islamic Republic.”

From Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin also sent his congratulations, adding: “Russia has been and will remain the reliable partner of the Islamic Republic. »

Despite rumors that his father opposed his candidacy for fear of transforming the revolutionary Islamic system of government into a hereditary system, Khamenei was for years seen as a possible – perhaps even probable – successor. Nevertheless, he remained discreet, giving no interviews or public speeches and holding no official position in the government.

He studied at a seminary in Qom after his service in the Revolutionary Guards and wears the black turban of a sayyid, indicating that he traces his lineage to the Prophet Muhammad.

Like his father, Khamenei rose to this position without the religious credentials necessary to do so. He is not an ayatollah, in the rank of the founder of the Islamic Republic and mentor of his father, Ruhollah Khomeini.

Ali Khamenei was also not an ayatollah, as required by the constitution, when he was chosen as supreme leader, although he later assumed that title. Khamenei is a Hojjat al-Islamwho is one step below the ayatollah.

According to Hamidreza Taraghi, an analyst considered close to Ali Khamenei, his son is expected to take an even harder line than his father’s, one that will virtually eliminate from the government anyone who advocates rapprochement with the United States and the West.

“The indulgence of the so-called reformers has only made America bolder, so we must not put these people in high positions, nor allow policies of openness to the West,” Taraghi said. “He will remain as firm as his late father against the Zionist regime and will not budge under pressure, whether internal or external. »

Geranmayeh, the Iran expert, added that Ali Khamenei’s supporters will expect his son to follow his father’s path “but potentially with more defiance to restore deterrence against the United States and Israel – something Ali Khamenei lost in his final years.”

On Monday, Iran’s state-affiliated television channels broadcast rallies across the country, showing masses of people gathering in main squares to express their loyalty. In Tehran, thousands of people gathered in Enghelab Square, shouting: “We sacrifice ourselves for you, O Khamenei!

Others were less enthusiastic.

“What can he do? Everything is at a standstill. He doesn’t even have an office to work and run the country,” said Azizullah, a grocery store owner in Tehran, who declined to give his full name for fear of reprisals.

“It doesn’t matter. They chose him, so he will be the next target to be assassinated,” he said.

Azizullah referred to Israel’s repeated threat to kill anyone named as the next supreme leader. On Sunday, Trump said any leader should be approved by the United States.

“If he doesn’t get our approval, he won’t last long. We want to make sure we don’t have to go back every 10 years, when you don’t have a president like me, that’s not going to be enough,” Trump said in an ABC interview.

Still, Trump said he would be receptive to numbers related to the former administration “in order to choose a good leader.”

“There are a lot of people who could qualify,” he said.

However, some in Iran consider the supreme leader to be of no importance.

“His predecessor was not important to me,” said Mehdi, an IT worker working near Enghelab Square. “The new one won’t be helpful for me and my family either.”